Adventure at Lindenlea
by Kanna-Ophelia
Summary: Based on the series by Agatha Christie. Tommy and Tuppence celebrate their recent marriage with a glorious adventure, facing dastardly spies, drug fiends, Bright Young Things, midnight romps and, most terrifying of all – Tuppence's godmother.
1. The Adventure Begins

"We really must try and get ahead with the case, you know."

The same statement had been made several times in the last week, by one or the other of the Beresfords, in varying tones. A certain amount of pleasurable excitement had been succeeded by lazy passivity. Now it was said with the guilty awareness that, to the cynical outside eye, they had done very little in the last week but have a glorious time ensconced in a luxury hotel, with fashionable clothes provided at the taxpayer's expense, at the very height of high summer.

It was not that they had not attempted in all conscience to perform their allotted duties. Tuppence was reaching the point at which she had become quite bored with cocktails and being made love to by gigolos with slicked-back hair, and Tommy had done his level, somewhat stilted, best with all the horse-faced young lovelies of the establishment, to the extent that he rarely left the tennis court. All work and no play, in fact. But still... no progress.

Tuppence sighed and turned away from the window. The view from their room was particularly ravishing, with a special line in sapphire seas and emerald lawns, but what she turned towards was equally entrancing in a more expensive way. The Government, as represented by Mr. Carter, had gone all out.

"It's difficult," she said, "to see exactly what we might do. I say, Tommy - you don't suppose it's all bosh? All the secret documents being sold to the Enemy and all that?"

Her husband eyed her thoughtfully. "Why on earth should you think that?"

"Well, why - all this?" Her circling arm took in all the trappings of a no-expense-spared fashionable holiday at the seaside.

"Cover, my dear girl. If you would like to take yourself back in time, my employer, Lord Elmsworth, requested us to pose as a wealthy and fun loving young couple and worm our way into the social circle of the local toffs, while keeping an eye out as to where certain information was making its way from Lindenlea to a certain Power -"

"Oh, yes, I know that. But perhaps Mr Carter was just being kind. I mean, he knows we didn't have much in the way of a honeymoon, and perhaps he was just putting us in the way of a good time."

"The old man is not bad, I'll give him that, but I hardly think he's as kind as all that. No, my dear - it's the real thing, all right. Tuppence, the Enemy really do seem to know things that were developed by British brains, and if there's to be another War..." Tuppence shivered slightly at the thought. "We just don't seem to be getting anywhere," she sighed.

It was too true for Tommy to dispute. Through the general gossip at the Grand Atlantic, the young couple had at least established the family layout of Lindenlea, the local manor: Lord Burt the esteemed scientist, his wife Lady Burt, their son Harold, and a second cousin and Lord Burt's ward, Vere Linden. Vere and Harold seemed popular and eligible young things: a seemingly endless stream of carloads bright, artistic and generally titled friends from London streamed in and out of the house. Yet, from Tommy and Tuppence's point of view, society at Lindenlea seemed as difficult to storm as the most barricaded trench. No matter how gallantly the young Beresfords put themselves about town, invitations to the festivities were simply not forthcoming.

Dropping the subject of their unsatisfactory progress for the moment, Tommy said:

"This might cheer you up, old thing. Forwarded from our flat, courtesy of the old man himself."

He tossed his wife a parcel wrapped in brown paper, which she unceremoniously ripped open, ignoring any comments as to rampant greed. He extricated a card as Tuppence dealt with the wrappings.

"It's from Aunt Maud. Yours, I presume, not mine, as I have no relatives answering to that particular name and title. I didn't know you did, either."

"She's a godmother, really, not an aunt. I was always quite terrified of her as a child. What does the old lady say?"

"I was getting to that, before your unmannerly interruption. Ahem. Dear Prudence - congratulations on your marital union. Marriage is an adventure, and I hope you shall not live to regret - ah. Felt you could have done better?"

Tuppence had disembowelled the parcel but, oddly, kept it still in its wrapping. "Oh, do ignore her, Tommy dear. She had ideas about me and - well, it hardly matters now, does it?"

"Still, it does give one rather an uncomfortable feeling, to be the source of disappointment to the in-laws. And I suppose she's right. I aren't up to much, am I? Not for a completely marvellous girl -"

"Oh, Tommy, you idiot!" Tuppence let the present slip to the floor, deciding that actions were far more effective than words, and accomplished any reassuring to be done quite to the satisfaction of both.

It was some minutes later that Tommy asked:

"What exactly did your worthy Aunt Maud send you, Tuppence?"

"Oh!" Tuppence dropped her chin so that her unruly black hair fell over her face, but Tommy could still see the redness of her cheeks, and the way her shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. "Oh, she's too dreadful."

Tommy pounced on the fallen present. "Oh, I say!" He leafed through the Bible, noting the stern dedication. "Is that supposed to be a message for us?"

"I suspect it's for you, darling." Tuppence's eyes sparkled with mirth. "To befit you to marry a clergyman's daughter."

"I think that's a bit stiff," he said, indignantly. "Am I the one who has branched out into cherry red lipstick and eyelash black? I think you've taken to the high life all too readily."

Tuppence grinned up at him. "I think cherry red lipstick suits me quite well," she mused. "Captain Gordon seemed quite taken..."

"I think your Aunt Maud should be told what a flibbertigibbet you are," Tommy told her sternly. "While I'm off, forcing myself to spend time with perfectly beautiful girls, and all the time I virtuously long for the love of a good woman -"

"Well, you'll have to be content with the love of a flibbertigibbet," Tuppence said firmly. They smiled at each other. "Ready to brave the trenches again, old thing? You can take the Bible, if you like. I have my own."

"Ready," Tommy assented, and the Beresford's set off, arm in arm, to face a daunting evening of socialising - in the name of keeping good old England safe from harm.

* * *

"Well, I'm off."

"To the golf course again?" Tuppence's voice held a plaintive note.

"Sorry to abandon you. But there's just a chance of meeting and befriending one of the Lindenlea lot down there. Harold Burt, it seems, prefers to play just before dark." He hesitated, putting a hand on the small shoulder of his wife. He was not immune to plaintive notes. "Sure you'll be all right on your own?"

Tuppence looked up into his ugly face, and her expression softened. "Of course," she said. She lifted her chin. "Besides, I might have one or two ideas of my own to follow up."

Tommy looked down at her with some alarm. "Don't do anything dangerous without me."

"Don't be silly, darling. What could I possibly do in a hotel?"

"I fear to think." He dropped a kiss on the top of her tousled head, and left.

Tuppence sat silently hugging her knees for some time after he left, her usually bright face a little overcast. Then she shook herself, gave herself a good talking to, and went to her trunk. Her eyes were very gentle for a moment as she touched the label - Mr and Mrs. T. Beresford.

They hadn't been married very long, and they were very much in love.

Next, she turned to the hotel bed, eyed it thoughtfully, and made her preparations. When she had finished, she examined herself appraisingly in the huge hotel mirror. "That will do - that will certainly do," she told herself, with great satisfaction. Her eyes were shining again as her plan took shape.

Inaction had never been Tuppence's forte.

* * *

Optimism, however, Tuppence rather fancied she was quite good at. If one only took some of kind of positive action, she reasoned, something generally turned up. Having made her way, with considerable effort considering the changes she had effected in her hotel room, across the perimeter of Lindenlea, she picked her way carefully towards the rose garden and took shelter behind a convenient bush.

Her luck held. Just as twilight began to spread softly across the sky a slender young thing, wearing cropped hair, a shapeless sack of fabric that probably cost as much as the Beresford's flat, and a monocle, moved into the garden with a distinctly sulky gait. Vere Linden, sent out to gather flowers for the dinner table and thinking it was somewhat beneath her dignity, if Tuppence was any judge.

Tuppence judged her moment carefully then let out an anguished cry, pitching forward onto the ground.

"Oh, heavens! Are you all right?" The young lady abandoned her air of oppressed sophistication, and rushed forward.

"I - arrgh!" Tuppence's face creased with pain, tears starting to her eyes. Her acting was leant greater verisimilitude by the fact that she had overenthusiastically pitched herself too close to a rosebush, and was suffering from thorns in delicate areas. "Help me! I'm so scared..." She flung her arms around the girl and clung. What if I lose m-my baby..." She burst into noisy, less genuine, tears.

Despite her tough and hardened appearance, the young lady apparently had something of the ministering angel in her makeup. She looked at Tuppence's middle, carefully stuffed with a pillow from the hotel bed belted into place, and her eyes grew wide with sympathetic horror. "You poor dear! It will be all right, I promise." She stroked Tuppence's hair. "Just wait while I run into the house and fetch some help."

"Don't leave me!" Tuppence's terror of being left to the hands of unsympathetic servants, who might question what a stranger in her condition was doing on the grounds in the first place, loaned genuine desperation to her voice.

"Oh, you lamb! Don't cry, I promise I'll be right back, and I won't leave your side until you're settled in bed and feeling quite well." Tuppence's new friend smiled down at her, and Tuppence felt a little guilty at the warmth in the smile. "I'm Freya Keller - Freddy. And you're -?"

"Mrs Prudence Beresford." Tuppence managed a watery smile. "Please call me Tuppence."

"I'll be right back, Tuppence."

Tuppence watched the lithe figure fly into the house, then surreptitiously adjusted her underpinnings. She was just in time - Freddy was back with the troops, in the form of a couple of sturdy footmen, a stretcher and a young man with beautifully arranged hair and no chin, in no time. Tuppence allowed herself to be lifted and carried into the house.

Being carried up the stairs was an exercise in torture. Tuppence heartily wished she could volunteer to walk, but did not wish to raise the question of whether she was, in fact, well enough to be taken home. She pressed her eyes tight against motion sickness as she bobbed and lunged in the arms of her heroes, wondering if her patients in her nursing days felt quite so ill when stretchered into the hospital. She had carefully made herself up to an ill pallor before leaving the hotel, but she suspected the effect was now tinged with an unhealthy shade of green. Oh, well, it was probably all the more convincing. She moaned a little.

"Freya, what is all this?"

The voice was distinctly familiar but, Tuppence supposed, all dragon-like old ladies sounded much the same. After all, anything else was unthinkable. She kept her eyes squeezed tight and prayed.

"Oh, hallo." Freddy seemed completely undragoned. "This girl had a bit of a nasty fall, and as you can see, she's in rather a delicate condition, so I thought it best to bring her to a bedroom for the time being."

"Hmmph. She shouldn't be out at all, if she's that far gone. And you, my good girl, have no business knowing about these things in the first place." Heavy footsteps came closer. "Why, it's disgraceful - PRUDENCE?! What is the meaning of this?"

Tuppence reluctantly pried open one eyelid. "Oh. Fancy seeing you here, Aunt Maud."

Taking in her godmother's furious expression, Tuppence decided that the most sane thing to do was to pretend to pass out.


	2. Plots Thicken

When Tuppence dared regain consciousness, the first, most alarming sight of her godmother's flared nostrils almost decided her on slipping back into a faint. Fortunately, prising her eyes open a little more revealed Freddy who, although not exactly a pretty sight, was a far more sympathetic one.

"How are you feeling?" Freddy asked.

Aunt Maud indicated with a sniff that it was of little consequence to anyone how Tuppence was feeling. A puff of air sharply exhaled further added that anything Tuppence was suffering, she had most definitely brought on herself through wanton sinfulness, and thus had a duty to suffer in silence.

"Much better. I do feel such a fool." Tuppence eased herself up a little.

"Oh, don't!" Freddy smiled sympathetically down at her. "Where are you staying? The Grand Atlantic, I suppose? I think we should let your husband know where you are, and send for your things. You're staying until you're quite better, of course."

Aunt Maud sniffed again. "Is that really your place to offer, dear?" She somewhat obviously thought it was not, which gave Tuppence pause to wonder. What exactly was the two women's place in the household?

Freddy stiffened, and her unbeautiful face flushed. "If you wish, I'll ask Vere. I'm sure she would wish Mrs Beresford to stay the night. In fact, she should stay rather longer, and her husband, too. We're always in need of some gay company here. It's rather dreary out in the country with only old corpses around," she added pointedly.

Aunt Maud glared at her, then turned pointedly back to her knitting, the needles clacking furiously. "I suppose that is settled, then. Prudence, I shall speak with you when we can be alone."

Tuppence gulped and nodded. There was blessed silence for a moment, during which Tuppence's brain was working furiously. She had expected something more decadent from Lindenlea. The presence of Aunt Maud in a den of spies and evil was utterly incongruous. Perhaps Mr Carter had been wrong, after all?

But then, Mr Carter was not the kind to be wrong.

She eyed Freddy thoughtfully, from under lowered lashes. When unaware of being watched, Freddy's face relaxed into notably unhappy lines - somewhat like a sad and not entirely unwicked goblin. With the monocle discarded, the shadows under her eyes were dark and deep.

Lifting her head from the pillow, Tuppence asked:

"Why are you called Freddy, and not Freya?"

Aunt Maud looked up from her knitting and expressed her opinion of nicknames with a snort.

Freddy shrugged her square shoulders. "Well, look at me. I'm not anyone's idea of a Nordic goddess." It was difficult to argue the point. "Why are you called Tuppence?"

"I suppose I've never been known for my prudence," Tuppence admitted, trying to ignore a second snort. She returned Freddy's comradely grin, but her mind was still racing. 'Freddy' was an irreproachably English moniker, but the same could hardly be said of 'Freya', or, indeed, 'Keller'. Of course, many people in England had unEnglish names, and were presumably not all spies. It was just that the girl looked so utterly miserable. What exactly was she doing at Lindenlea?

Tuppence wondered... she wondered very much.

Tommy took a cocktail from the tray and gulped a little down, wishing it was stronger. He was worried. It had been impossible to refuse being asked first for a drink, and then back to Lindenlea for dinner, after skilfully managing to lose just enough in a friendly round of golf with the Honourable Harold 'Hal' Burt and his friend, the charming and chinless Walter 'Wally' de Worthemley-Smythe to establish the three of them as friends for life. He simply couldn't give up a chance like that. But where on earth was Tuppence? There had been no sign of her at the hotel. Tommy vehemently wished he had pressed his wife further out her plans. He took another gulp.

"Worried that the little woman has let you slip the leash, eh, eh?" asked Wally, towards whom Tommy had already formed a firm dislike, nudging him hard in the ribs and making him spill some of his drink. "Enjoy your night of freedom while you can!"

"I thoroughly intend -" began Tommy, but the words dried on his lips. Descending the staircase was a rather odd looking young woman, Tuppence, and - Tommy's eyes were drawn inexorably to Tuppence's middle, and stayed there.

"Tommy!" Tuppence yelped, happily. Her eyes shone with glee. "What a coincidence! Freddy, no wonder we couldn't contact my husband at the hotel."

Tommy took a deep sip of his cocktail to steady his nerves. Unfortunately, at this moment he also took in the third person in the descending group, an elderly woman glaring at him as if he was the devil himself.

"Oh - Tommy - allow myself to present my godmother, Aunt Maud." Tommy choked over his cocktail, sputtering his way through a combined greeting and apology.

"Heh, heh, poor old boy - can't escape the wife and in-laws wherever you go!" chortled Wally, in high delight. Tommy wondered if it was too much to hope for that Wally would turn out to be the spy, and would be shot at dawn.

The bell rang for dinner at that fortuitous point. Tommy offered his wife his arm, and took the opportunity to hiss furiously in Tuppence's ear.

"Whatever are you playing at, Tuppence? I've told everyone we're on honeymoon! And your aunt!"

Tuppence twinkled up at him. "I'm sure no one thinks a thing of it. Don't be such a stick-in-the-mud, darling."

"Stick-in-the mud!" Rather fortunately, further conversation was forestalled as they took their seats.

Once the dinner party was underway, firmly putting Tuppence's duplicity out of his mind and concentrating on the business to hand, Tommy paid careful attention to his fellow dinner guests. Somewhat to his distress, he had found himself seated with Aunt Maud to his right, who fortunately mostly ignored him, except for the occasional reproving snort. Lady Beck was cast rather in the mold of Boedicea, or of Tuppence's Aunt Maud. Tommy guessed that the latter worthy lady had encountered his gracious hostess at some holiday resort for the elderly and wealthy, and formed an instant bond based on booming voices and terrifying sniffs. Next to his formidable wife, Lord Beck, universally know to his family and young guests as the Professor, was a bit nondescript. Hard to realise he was such a brilliant brain under that colourless, almost silent exterior - greatest military inventor in England, according to Mr Carter... He seemed interested in nothing but his victuals, which he consumed with great intensity.

As for the rest of the guests, well, Tommy was beginning to feel somewhat discouraged. It seemed impossible that Lindenlea was a den of evil. The two young people had filled the house with their friends, well enough, and the atmosphere was frantically gay and jaded all at once. On the surface, the guests were exotic enough, but they sorted out into, he felt, quite ordinary types. The artistic ones with shapeless clothes and monocles, the young women chiefly distinguished from the men by having shorter hair, he supposed were Hal's friends. Then there were what he felt to be the peacocks - Bright Young Things, the women dripping with jewels and beads, the men with perfectly tied cravats and hawing laughs, that he presumed to belong to Vere. It was difficult to remember any of their names. One and all, he felt, were essentially tedious, and unlikely to be associated with any sinister plots.

Tommy heartily wished he was back home with Tuppence, who seemed, somewhat to his surprise, to be enjoying herself immensely, her clear laughter ringing out often. Tuppence, he reflected, generally did manage to enjoy herself.

Only one woman stood out particularly. If Tommy had been privy to the earlier conversation, he might have concluded that Vere Linden was far more worthy of the name of a Nordic goddess than Freddy could ever be. Vere was, he couldn't help noticing, simply breathtaking. Her statuesque figure and clear pallor were set off by an abundance of red-gold curls, held in place with a simple gold band. The huge blue eyes under her pencilled eyebrows were both fine and lustrous - almost too lustrous, Tommy thought suddenly, as the spell of her beauty wore off a little. They roved constantly from face to face without, he felt, taking much in. And her long, lovely fingers were shaking - twice, when Tommy addressed some innocuous remark to her, her grip fumbled and she nearly dropped her fork.

Tommy found himself interested in Vere Linden.

Harold Burt's voice, louder and somehow more strident than it had been on the golf course, broke into his thoughts:

"It's all a mess, isn't it? I mean, we had the chance after the last war to put things right, for once and for all." He looked down the table, catching everyone's eye, but lingering, Tommy noted, on his beautiful cousin. "And instead, what happened? More of the same!"

"What exactly are you so keen to have changed?" Tommy asked quietly.

Harold gave him an impatient look. "Everything! Look at all the unemployment, all the waste of humanity. Give the average working class man the chance, and he'll sit with his pipe all day while England falls to wrack and ruin around him! The typical English man has forgotten how to work."

Tuppence caught Tommy's eye across the table. Her lips formed the question: fascist sympathies?

Tommy shook his head slightly. There was something false, to his ear, about the nervous bravado in Hal's voice. He seemed a very different boy to the pleasant, fashionable young peacock he had seemed on the golf course. Interesting...

"What about the typical English woman?" a girl Tommy believed was called Freddy asked, her small brown eyes gleaming suddenly in the candlelight. "Should she be put to proper labour as well?"

Hal laughed. "There are some women, I grant you, who are made and best fitted for labour. But a woman's best place is in the home. It's the job of her men to look after her. Why - look at Vere," he added, following suit, in a somewhat besotted manner if Tommy was any judge. "She's made for a man to worship and protect."

"Am I really? So, is that what I am?" Vere asked, so very quietly that Tommy was not sure anyone but he had heard her. He stared at her, ignoring one of the Bright Young Things' flirtatious challenge to Hal as to which kind of woman she was, but Vere's restless glance had stilled for a moment, fixed blindly on the plate before her.

Matters did not improve much after dinner. The Professor, it seemed, was firm about rules about port being served after the ladies had departed; one of the Bright Young Things, a girl with the unlikely name of Mopes, had trilled with laughter about the quaintness of it all, and been silenced with a crushing look from Lady Burt.

Tommy made a lame attempt to draw out Hal Burt and a few of the others about political affairs, but deprived of his female audience, Hal seemed completely unbothered. The Professor seemed deeply irritated at them all, but particularly Tommy and his right-leaning apparent sympathies. He glowered more and more the more Tommy tried, finally muttering that it was all stuff and nonsense and stalking off, slamming the door on the way. Poor Tommy felt quite unpopular.

His head was beginning to ache, and with the oppressive presence of the Professor gone, the conversation revolved most unhelpfully around the races and the ladies. Tommy felt, quite suddenly, that he couldn't bear it any longer. It was a mare's nest - he was sure of it.

He slipped out the French doors into the coolness of the summer night. No one seemed to observe, or at least to care, about his exit.

It was better, out in the darkness and fresh air. Tommy lit a cigarette, and paced a little, cheering himself by imagining just what he would say to Tuppence about her mad schemes when they were alone. He had nearly died of shock when he'd seem her padded middle!

Conversation and laughter drifted from the house. Gradually, however, Tommy began to be aware of other conversation, singularly devoid of laughter: hushed, urgent tones coming from around the corner. Pricking his ears, Tommy carefully extinguished his cigarette, and eased closer to the wall, finally looking around.

The Freddy girl was deep in a whispered argument with Vere Linden. The contrast between them as they stood there couldn't be stronger - looking at them, Tommy was disagreeably put in mind of a golden Rhine maiden being accosted by an evil dwarf.

"It's no good, Vere, I won't get it for you! You mustn't ask me."

"Darling, I have no choice. You're the only one who will help me. Please..." Vere lifted a lovely, pleading arm, gleaming in the moonlight, to Freddy's shoulder.

The smaller girl shook it off. "I won't! Do your own beastly work."

"Freddy..."

"No! Oh, listen to me, it's no good. You've got to give it up. For your own sake... Come away with me, dear, and we'll get you better."

"Oh, I can't! It gets hold of you, Freddy... I can't give it up now."

"Then go to the devil!" Freddy turned on her heel and ran towards the house.

Vere started after her, then made a hopeless gesture, and leaned back against the tree. After a while, she took something out of her bag. Tommy watched her a little longer, then quietly stole back to the house.

The reason for at least part of Vere's odd behaviour was suddenly very clear to him.

"Oh, Tommy, isn't it fun? I feel like the adventure is really started at last! And wasn't I clever to worm my way in?" Tuppence kicked off her shoes, then wrestled the pillow out from under her dress. Tommy watched her somewhat disconsolately.

"It wasn't in the slightest bit necessary. I told you golf was the key."

"Oh, nonsense. It's much more fun this way. And you'd hardly be asked to stay the night over a game of golf."

"I suppose it's nothing to you," Tommy said coldly, "that everyone in this household believes me to be a callous seducer and the ruin of a clergyman's daughter?"

"It is probably seen as one of your good points, with this lot," Tuppence remarked unrepentantly. "Besides, you made an honest woman out of me, didn't you?"

"Everyone makes mistakes," he pointed out. Tuppence flashed him a merry smile. "The worst of it is, who would expect to meet your godmother here?!"

"She's secretly chuffed to know she was right about you all along. She'll be eating out of your hand in no time" Tuppence said wisely. "Oh, Tommy, any luck with the men?"

"None at all. There's Hal - but I'm entirely convinced he didn't believe a word he said himself. He's not the snake in this grass, I'm sure of it. He was just trying to impress his father's lovely ward - the old story."

"It's curious, though, that the thinks the route to Vere's heart is the enforced labour of the working classes," Tuppence said thoughtfully.

"It is suggestive, I'll grant you that. And, speaking of the devil..." He quickly filled Tuppence in on the results of his eavesdropping.

"So, the beautiful Vere is a drug fiend," Tuppence said slowly. "And Freddy is supplying her with the dope. Oh, Tommy - I am sorry about that. Freddy is terribly nice."

"Really? I thought she seemed an awfully hard case!"

"Oh, she tries very hard to appear so, heaven knows why. Girls seem to do that nowadays. But she's sweet. And not at all happy. It's all horrid, really." Tuppence shivered. "She's been so kind, and I've wormed my way here under false pretences - and now we're calmly considering whether her friend is a traitor, with full intention of turning her in to the authorities if so."

"It's not always a nice business, this," Tommy agreed. "I say, Tuppence, I think Vere is going to try something tonight. I don't know if it's anything to do with stolen information - in fact, I'm beginning to think the spying is a pure fiction - but perhaps we should do something in any case. I don't like the thought of a splendid girl like that being preyed on."

"Such chivalry! She is quite pretty," Tuppence said, a trifle frostily. "Awfully wet, though. So - shall we burn the midnight oil, and keep a look out?"

"I don't know," Tommy began. "After all, a woman in your delicate condition -"

Tuppence threw the pillow at him.


	3. Midnight Excursions and Happy Endings

Bedtime happened late at Lindenlea. It was nearly two in the morning before quiet fell on the house and the Beresfords split up to take their separate watches. Tommy took up station in an empty sitting room near the Professor's study, watching through a slightly ajar door in case of a midnight run. Tuppence had been assigned to watching over Vere, on the dubious grounds of feminine sympathy. She ensconced herself in a convenient shadowy cubbyhole near Vere's room.

By three Tuppence was yawning and struggling to keep her eyes open. She'd had plenty of recent practice staying up at the hotel, but there had been jazz bands and dancing to keep her awake. Would the wretched girl ever leave her room? Only discomfort stopped Tuppence from drowsing off. The small table she had perched on had seemed quite comfortable for a girl of her small dimensions at first, but the longer the night wore on, the more precarious her position felt.

Tuppence yawned again, and rubbed her eyes. The table must be quite highly polished and slippery. She almost felt as if her behind was sliding...

She landed on the floor with a yelp and a crash, suddenly wide awake.

"Oh, that's torn it!" she muttered. A door slammed open near her and, with a sense of inevitability, she looked up into the ruddy and disapproving face of her Aunt Maud, rendered even more terrifying by her nightcap.

"Prudence! Do you have any explanation -"

"Not really, Aunt Maud," Tuppence said meekly. She accepted the lady's rather ungracious arm up, and clambered to her feet.

To her horror, there was movement at her midriff. Tuppence dropped her godmother's arm and clasped the pillow, desperately trying to stop it from slipping out from beneath her nightdress.

"Pru-dence! Whatever is wrong?"

Tuppence decided to go for something close to truth. "It's my baby! It's moving!" she gasped.

"Don't be ridiculous! You're not nearly far gone e -"

A sharp crack sounded from somewhere in the house, and Aunt Maud broke off. Tuppence felt the blood drain from her face and coldness sweep over her. She released her grip and let the pillow fall.

"Prudence, was that...?"

"I think - I think it was a gun firing," Tuppence gasped. "Oh, Aunt Maud - Tommy..."

Her godmother gave her a sharp look, which then moved meaningfully to the dropped pillow. "I shall expect the meaning of all this later, young lady," she hissed in low tones. She reached out and purposefully lifted a large vase. "Right now, though, I think I need to find out what is going on."

She strode off in the direction of the gunshot.

Tuppence took a moment to regain her breath, then picked up the pillow - for what reason she knew not - and scurried in her wake. She felt that she had rather allowed events to run away with her.

Tommy had been having a much more exciting evening up to that point. He had not taken his station long before he heard soft steps making their way down the passage. To his surprise, however, they did not continue onwards to the Professor's room, but paused at his door.

The door swung inwards suddenly, and Tommy had just enough presence of mind to leap back before it brained him.

Cursing his luck, he was not entirely unsurprised to look into the eyes of the Honourable Harold Burt. Hal, for his part, looked far more shocked.

"You!" they hissed in concert. Tommy was about to try and charge Hal with the situation regardless, when the sound of a second pair of footsteps sounded on both their ears. Hal gave Tommy a wild look, then shoved him further back into the room and hurriedly half-closed the door.

In shared silence, Tommy a bit bewildered, they watched a shadowy, small, slight form moved determinedly towards the Professor's office. It hesitated by the door for just a second, and a ray of moonlight fell from between the curtains, illuminating a smooth cap of black hair.

Tuppence? Tommy wondered. What on earth was she playing at?

The two men watched and waited as the girl disappeared into the room. Time passed... Tommy became more or more worried as the girl didn't reappear at the door.

"Something's wrong!" he said suddenly. "I'm going in after her."

He gave Hal a defiant look, still unsure of what the man wanted, but his mysterious companion just nodded and said:

"I'm coming with you. No tricks, Beresford, I warn you."

Tommy, too consumed with worry about Tuppence to argue, pushed swiftly through into the room, Hal at his heels. It was deserted, but the French windows were opening, swaying slightly in the breeze. Without a thought in his head but his wife's safety, Tommy plunged through them and into the night.

A small, dark woman was being accosted by a tall male figure. Tommy's heart in his mouth, he rushed towards them. The girl turned her head at their approach, and Tommy abruptly realised his mistake: the midnight intruder was not Tuppence at all, but the girl called Freddy! Tommy paused, flung off his step.

"You devil!" snapped Hal. "I knew what you were up to! Father is too trusting - and to drag a girl into it!"

Walter de Worthemley-Smythe let go of Freddy, pushing her sharply away. She stumbled into Hal's arms, and Tommy realised what Wally had been holding in his spare hand. The revolver gleamed coldly in the evening light. Freddy clung to Hal, and he put a protective arm around her.

"What of it? I have the information I need - and certain Governments will be very grateful to have it." Wally's inane young face looked older and far less English without his gaping grin. "And I suggest you let me leave with it in peace, Burt. Or your precious Vere will rue it!"

"What the hell do you mean?" sputtered Hal. "What does Vere have to do with it?"

Freddy raised her head from his shoulder. "Oh, Hal, listen to him - do. For Vere's sake! If you love her at all, let Wally go." Her tears shone on her pale, ugly face.

"I don't understand," Hal began, but Tommy had had enough. Vere, after all, meant little to him, and in his relief that Tuppence was apparently not under threat, he felt he could wrestle a bull. He leapt at Wally, delivering a sharp blow to the young man's weak chin. They went down into the bushes together, the gun firing once as the fell, before it fell from Wally's hand.

They struggled in the darkness, until Tommy felt Wally pulled from him, and watched with some glee - and a slight sense of disappointment that he had not been the one to deliver the blow - as Hal delivered a hard punch to Wally's nose.

"Hardly sporting, two against one," he demurred, as Hal pulled him to his feet and dusted him off.

Freddy's shriek pierced the air, and the two men realised, too late, their mistake. Wally had been felled like a log - but he had fallen close to the gun. He rose to his feet, and the three of them backed off.

"I had hoped to leave without any violence," Wally said, menacingly advancing towards them. Tommy watched with wide eyes, all his concentration focussed on Wally's weapon, and not on the shadow arising behind him. Please, Tuppence, he prayed, don't do anything rash now. "But you force my hands. Freddy, I can trust you to play cricket, but as for these two young jackanapes..."

He raised his weapon then froze for a moment, forming an odd tableau, before slipping nopiselessly to the ground.

Tommy stooped and removed the revolver from among the fragments of broken china, as Hal grimly removed his belt and fastened Wally's hands.

"Now, I suppose," said Aunt Maud, lowering the remnants of the vase, "someone will explain to me exactly what has been going on?"

Behind her, Tuppence raised her pencilled eyebrows, and shrugged helplessly.

"So, Aunt Maud saves the day!" Tommy said jubilantly, once they were back in their own room. "Really, what a family of harridans I've married into. I'm sure you'll be exactly like her in forty years, Tuppence. I see the signs already."

Tuppence gave him a somewhat wobbly smile, and Tommy was instantly alert and concerned. "Is something wrong, darling? We're both safe and sound, and Mr Carter has got his man."

"And his woman, too," Tuppence said. "I suppose we can trust her to play cricket and face the consequences, like she said?"

"There is that, yes," Tommy said slowly. "Somehow, I feel a bit of a heel about it. It's odd - I'm positively delighted that de Worthemley-Smythe will get what's coming to him, but when I think of that girl..."

"I don't understand why she did it," Tuppence sniffed. "You said she said something about Vere?"

"So did de Worthemley-Smythe. I still don't think we've got quite to the bottom of all this, Tuppence dear. I'm glad, though, that Hal was just trying to draw de Worthemley-Smythe out. I rather liked him."

A knock on the door broke into their thoughts. The Beresfords exchanged glances. "It's probably Aunt Maud..." Tuppence gulped.

Tommy gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and crossed to the door. He swung it open, to find the beautiful, tearful face of Vere Linden.

"Can- can I speak to Mrs Beresford?" she asked. "Alone?"

Tuppence took in her bedraggled, pathetic appearance, and made a swift decision. "Of course, dear," she said briskly. "I could just do with a nice cup of cocoa. Would you like one?" She smiled reassuringly at Tommy, put her arm around the taller girl, and they set off for the kitchen together.

Once she had Vere warmly wrapped up and settled with a steaming cup in her hands, she asked, in her best kind-but-firm nurse manner:

"I think you had better tell me all about it, don't you?"

"It's Freddy," Vere gulped. "She told me she'll probably go to prison, and it's all my fault! I was taking the papers before, but I got too scared, and she did it for me because she loves me. It's all my fault, and I'll never see her again, and I can't bear it..." She buried her head in her hands and sobbed.

"Why ever were you doing it, my good girl? Don't you realise how much that information means to this country, or what it would do in the wrong hands?"

"Wally found out! At first it was just about the cocaine, he found out somehow, and he said he'd tell Father unless I helped. But I stopped doing it for him, I did! And then he found out about Freddy, somehow, and he said he'd tell... Oh, Mrs Beresford, I couldn't! Mother and Father want me to marry Hal, and if they knew... If anyone knew..."

Tuppence listened quietly. She was still disgusted by Vere's cowardice and duplicity, but oddly, she felt a tugging at her heartstrings. Poor Freddy! And there was something so pathetic about this girl, waterlogged as she was. She came to a decision, and said sharply:

"Dry up and pull yourself together at once." Vere raised tear-drenched sapphire eyes to her, but Tuppence was more-or less immune to beauty in distress. "It occurs to me," she said, more gently, "that the best response to blackmail is to tell the truth and shame the devil. Then they have no power whatsoever over you."

"Oh - I couldn't..."

"Of course you could. There are plenty of discreet nursing homes these days, which have plenty of experience in treating addiction. As for the other - well, you have to decide exactly what matters to you."

"But - I'd lose everything."

"Nonsense, my good girl," Tuppence said robustly. "Everything? I suppose you mean your home here, and your money. Well, what of it? Let me ask you one thing, Vere - are you happy at Lindenlea?"

Vere mutely shook her head, tears rolling down her face.

"Then what are you afraid of? Take your chances in the real world. I can't tell you what to do, Vere, but I can tell you this - I'd rather share a flat and eat fried eggs with the only one in the world for me, than live a life here with parties and drugs, being miserable. Of course, it might be different for you." She broke off abruptly, feeling that it was useless to continue with such a soggy specimen of humanity. But oh - how she longed to give the silly girl a good shake!

"Tell me this," she said abruptly. "If you were given a chance to go and own up for stealing the information, on the promise that Freddy would be let off if you faced the music - would you do it?"

There was a long moment, during which Tuppence despaired, and then Vere's head came up. For a moment, she looked less like a drowning Rhine maiden, and more like a Valkyrie.

"If you'll truly let Freddy off, then I will go to the police and confess, right now."

Tuppence felt a triumphant grin spread across her face. "Good for you, Vere! Well, that settles it. We'll keep both of your names right out of it. But you have to promise me to stop taking that stuff, and try to act more like a girl who deserves to be loved the way Freddy obviously loves you."

"Oh, I will! Oh, Mrs Beresford - thank you! I'll never forget what you've done." She burst into a noisy fit of weeping.

Tuppence sighed, detached Vere's clinging arms, and left her to it. She felt there had been entirely too many tears from her already.

Two days later, Tommy and Tuppence strolled together in the grounds of the Grand Atlantic, Tommy's arm firmly around his wife's waist. They were glad to have shaken the dust of Lindenlea from their feet. Mr Carter had suggested - "Oh, he is kind!" Tuppence had said - that the two of them should stay out the week at the hotel, as he had paid in advance.

"Isn't it glorious not to have to force ourselves out onto the dance floor?" Tuppence sighed happily. Tommy smiled, and was bending down towards them when a shout broke into their little world.

"Tommy! Tuppence!" Freddy raced towards them, her face aglow. "Oh - I'm so glad to have caught you!" She seized Tuppence's hands. "Isn't it all wonderful? Oh, Tuppence - Vere has booked herself into a nursing home, and she's really going to try, this time. It's all thanks to you. And afterwards - oh, I can hardly believe it - she's going to come to live in London with me. I can support her, you know - I've been offered a job designing dresses for a London shop. I designed this, you know," she added proudly.

Tuppence looked down at the shapeless, hideous and decidedly chic ensemble Freddy was wearing, and beamed. "I'm sure you'll be a huge success," she said sincerely. "And Freddy, will you take some friendly advice from me?"

"Anything!" Freddy said fervently.

"Make Vere get a job, too."

"Vere - work?" Freddy's eyes widened.

"Yes, work! Giving her something to think about would be the best thing in the world for that girl, in my opinion. Ask your shop to give her a job - a girl with her looks and breeding could sell clothes to anyone. They'll lap her up."

"It's... it's a thought..." Freddy said slowly. "I'll find out. Oh, Tuppence, I do think you're positively the most angelic of angels!" She seized Tuppence in a fierce hug, then tore off again.

"I suppose you realise," Tommy said sternly, when Freddy had vanished, "that we've not only allowed two nefarious spies to escape, but that you've aided and abetted that young woman in seducing a girl of good family into an unnatural and immoral relationship, tearing her from the bosom of her family to work in a shop well below her class and probably breaking poor young Hal's heart in the bargain."

"Oh, Tommy, don't be so stuffy," was all Tuppence said.

"I must say you do hold very odd views for a clergyman's daughter," Tommy told her.

Tuppence smiled up at him. "I just want everyone to be as happy and in love as I am."

"Oh, Tuppence..." He bent his head down to hers.

Eventually, he said:

"What I don't see is why such a perfectly beautiful and eligible girl should end up with a creature like Freddy. What on earth does she see in her?"

Tuppence's eyes flashed. "What I don't see is what a marvellous girl like Freddy should see in a wet blanket like Vere!"

"I suppose it's not such a mystery, really," Tommy mused. "Girls fall in love with the strangest people. Look at us. I know you're worth a thousand of me for brains and courage, Tuppence, and as for looks, you're an odd match with an ugly fellow like me."

"Oh, Tommy. You complete and utter idiot. Oh, you darling stupid - isn't everything in the world perfectly lovely?"

Her words weren't flattering, but catching the expression in his eyes, Tommy felt that the world was, indeed, a perfectly lovely place. He reached out a hand to smooth her black hair, and then -

"Prudence Beresford! I have some words for you, young lady!"

They turned to face Tuppence's godmother, hand-in-hand. "Tuppence?" Tommy asked, between his teeth.

"Yes, Tommy?"

"What do a pair of brave young adventurers do in a situation like this?"

"Run?"

They ran, hand-in-hand, off into the sunset.


End file.
